In 2022, 10 years ahead of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, Queenslanders With Disability Network (QDN) and Urbis began a collaboration to understand how mega-events can leave a positive employment legacy for people with disability.
The result is a report that aims to ignite a transformative change in employment opportunities for people with disability. We analyse the current employment landscape for people with disability, learn from past mega-events around the world, and provide strategic recommendations to shape and enhance the employment ecosystem leading up to, during, and following the 2032 Games.
The report, authored by Urbis in conjunction with Queenslanders with Disability Network, was completed in 2024. Read it here!
Gununa Futures was a two year project (2022-2024) by a core team of researchers - Carroll Go-Sam, Kelly Greenop, and Kali Marnane - to help assess how to procure better designed houses that fit with Gununa peoples’ needs. We were invited to Gununa by Mornington Shire Council to undertake the work, which culminated in community presentations, an exhibition at the State Library of Queensland, and a publicly accessible report.
The research team undertook a qualitative paid community survey of residents to understand their housing experiences. We developed the survey questions based on the United Nations Right to Adequate Housing criteria, enabling us to assess the responses according to agreed minimum standards for housing. This has allowed us to assess current housing within Gununa and to speak about the housing and its overall suitability within these UN categories. In addition, we recorded interviews, transcribed and then themed these interviews across participants to understand the Gununa-specific issues that people had with their housing, and presented these within this report. Separately, we conducted research activities with young people at the Mornington Island State School. These activities elicited what young people liked/disliked, wanted to see improved and their vision for their town.
You can read the report on UQ eSpace here. The report aims to summarise some critical issues affecting housing, and therefore people, of Gununa, Mornington Island, Queensland. The report explores the complex interaction of culture and housing, and uses the international benchmark for evaluating housing - the United Nations Right to Adequate Housing criteria - to explain specifically how the housing could be improved. Our reporting tries to maximise the inclusion of voices of the Gununa residents who participated in the research, and these quotes are presented in bold. We aim to maximise presentation of the depth and diversity of experiences we encountered, to show that there is no singular idea of a best urban design or housing response that will fit every resident.
You can read the report here.
Growing Up in Beenleigh examines youth perceptions of urban space to better understand the impact the local environment has on their lives. It is part of a global research project led by Deakin University. Together with Logan City Council as part of CityStudio Logan and Beenleigh State High School, we are working on ways to apply this knowledge in support of meaningful change in the design and management of urban places. The University of Queensland Project team includes Dr Kali Marnane, Dr Kelly Greenop, Stephanie Wyeth, Dr Maram Shaweesh and Dr Bryan Mukandi collaborating across architecture, urban design, planning and public health disciplines.
Too often, fear, anger, stress, and anxiety influence planning and design outcomes. As Southeast Queensland grows, how do we cultivate the qualities of love and kindness in the built environment? In this patternbook, we celebrate a collection of places and processes that have allowed us to experience love and kindness as we move through the city and suburbs. We look to the particular ways in which these places or design processes have cultivated love and kindness as a template for our future work. These seeds of inspiration aim to disrupt business-as-usual to make places in which we—residents, visitors, humans, and more-than-humans—can all thrive. Patterns are designed to be copied. They can be adjusted for to create the best fit for an individual, a community or a place. This patternbook starts to build a collection of concepts, mindsets and small and large-scale interventions into the built environment. The collection has been developed in conversation with local practitioners, community advocates and changemakers. As a reader, you can start at the beginning, middle or the end. We would love to hear your insights and feedback, and look forward to seeing if and how these patterns for love and kindness have been shared and adapted to your work, practice or neighbourhood. We hope that this patternbook helps to reveal the benefits of cultivating love and kindness in our work and creating the places which support positive ‘everyday’ experiences.
You can read the patternbook here.
Campuses on Countries is a framework that guides all new built environment and landscape projects at The University of Queensland.
The Campuses on Countries Design Framework and Engagement Report by Carroll Go-Sam, Kelly Greenop, Theresa Bower and myself resulted from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Design Principles Project led by Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Indigenous Engagement) Professor Bronwyn Fredericks and the Indigenous Leadership Group at The University of Queensland (UQ).
The Design Framework addresses some of UQ’s Reconciliation Action Plan goals - one of which is to Incorporate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander values and spaces in the physical and built environment. The Design Framework will guide the development of intercultural design excellence across UQ’s physical estate with clear design principles and criteria to measure success of projects. It also operates as a handbook for architects and designers with precedent projects, design prompts and historical information to foster inclusive and celebratory designs for places that welcome, engage, and celebrate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities within UQ and the broader community. The Design Framework includes principles and criteria to guide projects:
Design Principles: 1. First Caring for Country 2. Shared Respect, Shared Meaning, Shared Knowledge 3. Deep Listening 4. Embedded Voices 5. Celebrating Excellence 6. Exploring Storylines
Design Criteria: 1. Governance 2. Engagement 3. Social Safety 4. Shared Economic Benefits 5. Ecological Care 6. Policy Framework 7. Spatial Integration 8. Cultural Sustainability
As part of the project, our team completed extensive consultation with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff and students at UQ about their experiences across UQ campus environments and sites on different countries. The findings of this six month process are contained in the Engagement Report.
We learned that it is not always possible or feasible to undertake engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff, students and community on every project at UQ and over-engagement in the past with little outcome has led to consultation fatigue. However, all projects must care for Country and incorporate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander aspirations and requirements. It was therefore important to engage comprehensively at this stage to support all projects moving forward. We listened to participants’ opinions about and experiences of the places they frequented and campus features they liked, disliked or thought could be improved and provides detailed feedback on many sites and buildings at UQ. This publication is a vital resource and essential reading for UQ’s large and expanding community and all external built environment practitioners and contractors.
The world is experiencing unprecedented urban growth alongside increasing levels of poverty and inequality. Slums, informal settlements and squatter settlements are projected to house two billion people globally in the next 20-30 years. Many planners and policy makers regard these settlements as ‘slums’ suffering from degraded environments, social malaise, backwardness, planning failure and a threat to achieving ‘world class’ city development. But are these settlements really as bad as outsiders say they are?
My doctoral thesis argues that the ‘slum’ label attributed to Ramapir No Tekro and Gandhi Vas settlements in Ahmedabad, India is misleading: although their tenure status is ‘informal,’ this is not reflected in their architecture and there is much to be learned from the way the built environment facilitates cultural and social connection.
In Ahmedabad, the largest city in the state of Gujarat in India’s north-west, approximately 728,000 people live in informal settlements. As India adds 416 million new urban residents by 2050, it is projected that most of these people will be accommodated by informal architecture. Policy and planning interventions in informal settlements often focus on built environment deficiencies and ignore the agency of residents. To find better solutions for residents, my thesis examines the spatial organisation and meaning of two informal settlements in Ahmedabad, India.
To explore these questions, I undertook a qualitative case study collected data over three fieldwork periods totalling six months during 2017-2018. The study discovered documented housing types and settlement patterns replicated spatial organisation and use from residents’ rural villages of origin. Significant identified spatial patterns included dwelling location, incremental construction process, dwelling thresholds, shared open spaces in housing clusters, and neighbourhood organisation.
You can read the thesis in full here.
Photographs taken on disposable cameras by Year 5 students Bhavin, Hitesh, Divya, and Rekha who attended Manav Mitra community centre in 2018.
Brisbane City Council contracted Kali to conduct nine community workshops with year 7 students in three schools near Gaythorne in June 2019. The study helped the Council understand life and space in Gaythorne Village from the perspective of 12-13 year olds, a group that is often left out of city planning yet have insights and perspectives that adults, habituated to their environment, too often don’t see. Creative exercises were a fun method of exploring public space and amenity in the area and culminated with a public photography exhibition at the Gaythorne Community Festival on July 27. A report collated the findings from those workshops to articulate challenges and opportunities for growing public life around a strong neighbourhood identity.
“I thought everything was really well organised and run… The students were very proud of the photos they produced and it was good to see so many responses from the same small area.” - YEAR 7 TEACHER
October 2017
This project aimed to embed environmental thinking into community center curriculum for students in fifth grade living in a disadvantaged ‘slum’ area in India. Creative exercises allowed students to think critically about their surrounding built environment and culminated in an exhibition of photography work to the community center students, staff and local parents. Their displayed work identified the strengths and weaknesses of their neighbourhood and demonstrated the pride they took in their work. The presentation gave them a unique opportunity to voice their opinion when they are otherwise not provided a platform to be heard.
Photographs by Kali Marnane and Tess Martin.
The “Paired Twin House” proposal was a winning entry in the Density and Diversity Done Well open ideas competition run by the state government of Queensland. It suggests a new housing typology to affordably increase block density incrementally from 20 to 80 dwellings in a typical Brisbane suburb.
Critically, whilst increasing the population, the proposal supports density with infrastructure that encourages safer communities, active lifestyles, public transport use, connects with neighbours and retains nature. The typical Queensland suburban street has much potential to be used for more than just car transport. Repurposing existing street zones and decreasing lane widths will reduce traffic speed and prioritise pedestrians. Cycleways, community infrastructure and pocket parks intermingled with street parking provide a rich, safe, active street condition.
Project team: Kali Marnane and Tess Martin
Bholu 15 is a preschool located in the Ramapir No Tekro informal settlement in Ahmedabad, India.It provides a peaceful and safe sanctuary in the often stressful lives of children living in slum communities.
The project team (myself, Niini Mendonca, Harshil Parekh and Shailaja Patel) worked for five months in close consultation with the community to deliver the preschool, make friends over cups of chai and play some great games of street cricket. We conducted a holistic process from initial research, site analysis and community consultation to generate a brief and understand the goals and objectives for the project; design presentations to gather feedback; tendering to local contractors; construction and finance management through to an inauguration celebration and post-occupancy review. We even helped out with manual labour on site!
The preschool is administrated by a local NGO, Manav Sadhna, whose mantra is to "reduce, reuse and recycle". We achieved this objective through reusing existing material on site; collecting waste stone to reuse in floor and wall mosaics; recycling plastic waste into a rainbow mural and reducing energy use with abundant natural light and ventilation.
This is the fifteenth preschool built by The Anganwadi Project (TAP) with the support of Architects Without Frontiers and in partnership with Manav Sadhna (an Indian NGO based in Mahatma Gandhi's Ashram). We completed the preschool in June 2016.
With increasing ticketed events at the Piazza in South Bank, a Box Office was required for patrons to purchase and collect tickets and find information on upcoming shows. Bright pink differentiates the Box Office from its surroundings, accentuating the form and subtly reinforcing the branding colours of the South Bank Corporation. The form was derived from the strong geometry of the existing piazza. The Box Office also provides a wayfinding node for friends and family to meet at the column, away from people queuing.
Completed whilst employed at The Buchan Group.
May 2016
The Hawthorne Deluxe Cinema is a boutique addition to the 3-screen Cineplex theatre across the road. Encompassing two restaurant tenancies (one in a re-purposed pre-1900s house), the precinct celebrates the characteristic features, place specific materials and strong community atmosphere of the site and its surrounds. The proposal privileges street life and pedestrian experience to create a lively hub that will become the heart of Hawthorne.
Using the existing theatre and pre-1900s house as anchor points, the project explores the idea of occupying spaces underneath in contrast to those on top. The project is imagined first as a ruin from which lightweight walls are built up, fold back and open out.
Artist's impressions by Kali Marnane. Completed whilst employed at The Buchan Group. Check out some photos of the project here.
In the news:
a “glamorous 21st century sibling to the historic Hawthorne Cinemas across the road”
the project “activated the Hawthorne precinct”.
"a unique destination in the city's southeast"
In the summer of 2010, 20 designers from around the world gathered in Helsinki (Finland) to design and build a sauna in two and a half weeks.
The design brief, set by the Alvar Aalto University ‘Wood in Construction’ Summer School, asked for a sauna to be constructed of timber with the primary structure utilising a 2.1m cube of laminated veneer lumber.
The resulting design elevates the sauna box on timber columns to offer unexpected views to the surroundings. In doing so, a new entry ritual into the sauna itself is created. Interior benches are suspended within the box to capture the hot air rising from the stones below. Exterior cladding protects the sauna from the elements and maintains a rhythm to amplify the floating box.
